Tributes to Russert: Critics Cluck 'Drawn-Out,' but Viewers Were Drawn In

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: The TV Column
Tributes to Russert: Critics Cluck 'Drawn-Out,' but Viewers Were Drawn In
By Lisa de Moraes
Tuesday, June 17, 2008; Page C07


Luke Russert mourns his father on the Washington set of "Meet the Press" on Sunday. (Alex Wong/AP)

The news media are now in Stage 2 of mourning over the unexpected death of Tim Russert, NBC News's venerable Beltway show host: pundit backlash to Friday's extensive coverage, which naturally was spearheaded by NBC and MSNBC....TV Newser called the coverage "NBC's Orgy of Mourning." Poynter Institute's Al Tompkins spanked NBC Universal for the "hour upon hour that NBC and MSNBC devoted to coverage of his death."...

But early ratings results for Sunday's "Meet the Press" indicate that viewers, at least, approved. Based on preliminary stats, it appears the show Russert had hosted since 1991, and which this week was hosted by Tom Brokaw and devoted to Russert, may have logged nearly 60 percent more viewers than its May average ratings. If these figures hold up when final stats come out later this week, it would mean the special tribute attracted somewhere in the vicinity of 6 million viewers....

In addition, the cable news audience migrated to MSNBC in droves on Friday when NBC officially announced Russert had died suddenly, at age 58, while preparing for his Sunday broadcast in NBC News's Washington bureau. Brokaw made the announcement on NBC in the 3:30 p.m. half-hour that day. From 4 to 5 p.m., MSNBC's audience approached 1 million viewers -- a spike of about 220 percent compared with the cable news network's year-to-date Friday average in that hour....CNN and Fox News Channel also experienced ratings hikes in that hour, with programming turned over largely to the Russert story. FNC's average climbed 3 percent -- also approaching 1 million viewers -- and CNN's jumped 16 percent to nearly 800,000 viewers. That's a total of nearly 3 million viewers tuned in to hear details of Russert's death from a heart attack.

MSNBC's ratings continued to climb into prime time, as it stayed with the story: 5 p.m., up 105 percent; 6 p.m., up 118 percent; 7 p.m., up 103 percent, and so on, peaking between 8 and 9 p.m., when about 1.4 million were watching MSNBC's coverage. From 9 to 10 p.m. about 1 million were watching the Russert story on MSNBC and another 1.4 million over on CNN's "Larry King Live."...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/16/AR2008061602733.html

[leftofthedial]

1. this is how the RW creates mythology

they did it for raygun.

they are doing it for george the first and he's not even dead yet.

they are trying to create a new neocon-flavored murrow to redraw the lines of what constitutes "journalism" and to provide a patron saint of the neomedia order

[NashVegas]

2. That's the Cume - What's the TSW

How many people tuned in - and stayed?

[liberal N proud]

3. NBC exploited the death of one of their own to increase viewership

That is really sick considering they were crying on OUR shoulder.